I don't think Nuclear Thermal Rockets would be politically acceptable, no matter how much you R&D them in the near-medium term. So that's another example of spending that would occur, without the technology being used.

I don't think Nuclear Thermal Rockets would be politically acceptable, no matter how much you R&D them in the near-medium term. So that's another example of spending that would occur, without the technology being used.

Meantime, there would be no successor manned vehicle for a long time.

Pre-emptively attacking countries based on fabricated lies isn't politically acceptable. Bailing out greedy financial institutions using taxpayers money isn't politically acceptable. Media and Internet censorship isn't politically acceptable. Un-elected military Juntas aren't politically acceptable. But you'll find all this and much more going on in countries all over the world. Why are NTRs a special case? The first country to use them will have a massive advantage over any competitors who refuse to use them.

going to have to disagree with you on that one. the ARES V may have been somewhat on the right track, but Ares I was way off. and what they had to do to the Orion because of Ares I was just.... wrong.

Hmm, what was done to mangle the Orion capsule?

It's capabilities have been reduced numerous times just because Ares-I didn't turn out in a way that could handle the more "powerfull" (read: heavy) Orion.

So the soft landing system that would have allowed to land on ground and not only on water had been canceled, the pressurized cargo container got thrown out of the window and the last thing that I've heard (iirc) was that the 6-crew to ISS version had to be dropped as well (leaving questions about the feasibility of the 4-crew Lunar version, etc).

I'm sure anybody who did follow Cx more closely than I did (didn't like it right from the start), can tell you more accurate things about this.

If the US had built even a modest backup system to transition past the flight gap between the Shuttle and the "real successor", then you wouldn't have to worry about "paranoia". (SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, etc don't count as a real backup, but more of an audacious hope, since they haven't even flown anybody yet)

The Russians still have their Soyuz and Proton workhorses chugging away reliably, which is why so many depend upon them. While the US still has Atlas, Delta, Titan, etc, these still aren't man-rated -- perhaps that should have been done before the Shuttles came to the end of their lifespan.

a couple things to remember here.....Columbia and Challenger each changed plans in progress for upgrades, replacement programs etc.Until Bush, NASA was looking to fly shuttle till 2020 or farther.

it really wasn't paranoia about flight gaps, as all upgrades are done when the shuttle goes in for maintenance and overhaul, which was a routine deal done every so many years/flights. there have been upgrades to the shuttles, many in fact. They're just not usually publicized.

NASA's tried working successor programs over the years, all of whichhave been cancelled for one reason or another.

I liked the Reagan admin's idea of the "National Aerospace Plane" (aka "Orient Express") because that was a practical link between Man's space ambitions and the everyday need for convenient rapid travel.